John writes the book of 1 John so that Christians can know that they have eternal life (cf. 1 John 5:13). Not only this, but John proclaims that he is writing these things so that our joy may be complete (cf. 1 John 1:4). True joy and pleasures forevermore are in the presence of God (cf. Psalm 16:11). We were made for relationship. Ultimately, we were made for relationship with God. Our greatest joy and true life satisfaction will only be found by being in fellowship with God. But John now wants us to consider if we have that fellowship with God. Open your copies of God’s word to 1 John 1:5-10 and we are going to read about the confidence and hope that God wants us to have with him.
The Truth (1 John 1:5)
John proclaims the important truth that they heard from the Lord. God is light and in him there is not darkness at all. The character of God does not allow for darkness. This seems to be an easily forgotten but critical truth. Often people will talk about how God is love and use that to justify certain actions. It is absolutely true that God is love. This truth will be stated in 1 John. But there is another absolute characteristic of God. God is light. This does not merely mean that God gives us the direction for our lives in the darkness. God is light carries a moral quality. God is holy and pure. God is right and always does right. God defines what is right and wrong. God cannot be with darkness. This characteristic of God is just as strong and has just as much pull as the character that God is love. This sets up the cosmic problem of the scriptures and of creation. God is love and really loves his people. God is light and cannot be with darkness at all. So how is God going to love his people when his people are in darkness? John will talk about that in this book soon. But the rest of this paragraph is going to explain the application of this truth that God is light.
Denial #1 (1 John 1:6-7)
The point John wants us to think about is with how our walk, that is, how we live our lives. John says that if we say that we are in fellowship with God but walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. Here is the problem that John wants to address. We say that we are in relationship with God, but we are practicing sin. The words have to match the lifestyle. Fellowship with God is incompatible with a life in darkness. I believe that this is one of the reasons why John uses this imagery. We understand that light and darkness are incompatible. Light and darkness do not mesh. They do not combine or work together. They are opposites.
This is one of the great problems today. So many people say that they have a relationship with Jesus but they do not live like it. They say that they follow Jesus but the lifestyle does not match the words. Walking in the light does not mean saying that we walk in the light. Walking in the light means walking in the light. The name of Jesus is blasphemed, rejected, and dismissed because there are many who say that they have fellowship with God but walk in darkness. John wants us to get real right here. We are lying if we say that have a relationship with God but are not listening to what God says to do. We are lying to ourselves if we think we have fellowship with God are not following what God says to do and changing what God says to change. Listen to what the apostle Paul said to the Ephesian Christians.
But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:20-24 ESV)
If you know Christ, then you know that means put off the former way of living, being renewed, and living so radically different that it is a whole new you, created after God’s likeness in true righteousness and holiness. To say this another way, we do not excuse walking in darkness if we are in fellowship with God. We recognize that no sins are acceptable. We do not willfully continue in sin. Now we might wonder if all of us are in darkness because all of us still struggle with sin. John addresses this in the next sentence. Look at verse 7.
John says that if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with each other. Remember what we learned in the last lesson. John said that we must be in fellowship with the apostles if we are going to be in fellowship with God (1 John 1:3). The apostles are in fellowship with God and we know that we have fellowship with God if we are fellowship with the apostles. So now the point is made here that if we are walking in the light then we have fellowship with the apostles which means we are in relationship with God. Does walking in the light mean sinlessness? No, it cannot mean this because of the rest of what John says in verse 7. John says that if we walk in the light then the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If walking in the light meant sinlessness, then we would not need the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from all our sins.
Therefore, we need to think of walking in darkness and walking in the light in terms of the rule for our lives. We need to be thinking about what our practice is. Are we consistently striving to walk in the light each day? Are we consistently choosing to walk in darkness and not do what God has asked us to do? Does God’s will and word rule our lives or do our desires rule our lives? Now here is the key point that John is trying to get us to think about. We cannot practice darkness and expect God’s cleansing. We cannot do whatever we want to do and think we are in fellowship with God or are being purified from our sins. Remember that John is writing so that we will know that we have eternal life and he wants our joy to be complete. He does not want anyone deceiving themselves. God is light. We cannot practice sin and think that we are in fellowship with God or that the blood of Jesus is cleansing us from our sins.
Denial #2 (1 John 1:8-10)
Now John wants us to caution us from another deception. Look at verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, then we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. Notice that there is a lot of deception in the claims we are making to ourselves and to others. John first taught us to not think that we are in fellowship with God if we are walking in darkness. We are deceiving ourselves. But now he says do not think that you do not have sin or you are deceiving yourself as well.
In short, do not pretend about who you are. To help us see what John is focusing on, I want us to think about what verse 9 is asking from those who are fellowship with God. He is telling us to confess our sins. The first contrast was walking in darkness versus walking in the light. Now the contrast is saying that we have no sin and confessing our sins. Denial of our sins is inconsistent with walking in the light. Walking in the light means we are constantly aware of our need for the mercy and grace of God. We always need Jesus. There is never a time where I can that I don’t need Jesus. I believe this is one of the interesting acts that God works on our hearts. The more we come to know the Lord, the more we see how far short we have fallen and how much more I need the Savior. We continue to understand the weight and gravity of our sins. We do not claim to be without sin. We own our sins and quickly admit our sins.
Friends, we are being told that we cannot be sin hiders but sin confessors. Unfortunately, sometimes churches promote the opposite. How often do we see churches hiding and covering up sins which only leads to more problems and more wrecked lives! God constantly shows us in the scriptures that covering up our sins is the path to spiritual disaster. King David is put forward as one of the prime examples of the disaster of covering up our sins. David sinned with Bathsheba, committing adultery with her. But what was worse was all the ways he tried to hide his sins. The lies and the deception led to murder in an effort to try to hide something that God saw. Friends, do we think we can hide our sins from God? God already saw what we did. So what the point of covering over our sins? But this is also true with each other. Hiding our sins with each other also makes things worse. Rather than getting the help, support, and accountability we need, we try to hide our sins which only destroys the relationships.
Why are we so resistant to admitting our sins to each other? Why do we try to hide what is going on in our lives? Why do we hide our struggles? Why do we try to pretend to be something or someone that we are not. James teaches us to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so that we can be healed (James 5:16). There cannot be healing when we are denying our sins and covering up our failures. We need to tell our friends that we sinned. We need to tell our children when we fail. We need to confess our sins to our spouse. Why are we sin hiders when God wants us to be sin confessors?
But listen to the even greater problem in verse 9. God says that we need to confess our sins for cleansing. Denying our sins means that we cannot be cleansed. Verse 9 contains a wonderful and beautiful promise. If we will confess our sins to God and not try to hide like Adam and Eve tried to hide, God says that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God wants us to have the heart of the tax collector who would not raise his eyes to heaven but beat his chest and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Jesus told us not be like the Pharisee, who rather than being aware of his own sin, prayed to God that he was grateful to not be like all these other sinners.
We need to let the weight of God’s promise move us. God is faithful and he is righteous. He will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Please underline the last two words. All unrighteousness. God is faithful to forgive every sin if we will confess our sins to him. Hiding does not deliver the forgiveness we need. Confession gives us the forgiveness we need. Now do we believe it? Do we believe that God will forgive us for every sin we have committed if we confess to him? Sometimes we think that God cannot forgive us or won’t forgive us for something the things we have done. But God says the opposite. He will forgive you if you will be in relationship with him and confess your sins to him.
Fellowship Requires Honesty
John wants us to understand that fellowship with God requires honesty. We have to be honest with God, with ourselves, and with others. We need to be honest about if we are truly trying to walk in the light or if we are deceiving ourselves. We need to be honest about our sins and not deny who we are and what we have done. God has always desired an honest relationship with his people.
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. (Proverbs 28:13 ESV)
Denial prevents repentance, confession, and restoration. Denial keeps us from having fellowship with one another. Hiding our sins makes spiritual support impossible. It is so easy to live in sin but convince ourselves that we are in relationship with God. God is light. So we want to walk in the light. So we are admit your sins and make the changes needed to walk in light and not in darkness. The courage we need to walk in the light is to know that when we fail, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us when we confess that failure to him. What John just taught us is that our failure is not that we sin, because we are going to sin (1 John 1:8,10). Rather, our failure is that we deny our sin and refuse to confess our sins to God and to one another. Don’t say you are in the light when you are choosing the darkness each day. Don’t pretend to have a relationship with God. Have a real relationship with him, striving to follow him and confessing our failures when we come up short. Complete honesty is what God wants. Don’t cover up your sins. Be honest with God. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with others. You will not be turned away when you come with open hands to the Lord.